Big business lessons for small business owners

As a small business coach I see the majority of clients making the same mistakes. A couple that rear theirugly heads constantly are poor cash flow management and unprofitable products or services. No big surprises there. You might be surprised to know that big businesses also suffer from these two uglies.

Recently cleaning giants Swan Services had administrators appointed after the company made losses from a number of unprofitable contracts. I read the article and wondered how that could happen in a big business? As small business owners it can be difficult to have the knowledge or the time to be assessing profitability (even though we should) but I assumed a large company would have a warm body (several probably) to constantly asses that kind of stuff. It makes me wonder if someone at Swan is hiding under their desk hoping no one will notice the massive financial faux pas that could send the company under.

The moral of the story is “If you are selling unprofitable products or services you will go broke”. Harsh but true my business friends.

Your challenge this week is to look at every product or service that you offer, are they all profitable? You might have loss leaders in place, if you do are they really loss leaders or just big fat losses?